Lefkosia based musician ELY (Henry Walton) releases his debut album Are You Invested In The Economy Of Love? on London's Algebra Records, a collection of improvised instrumentals recorded over a period of 3 years in London and Lefkosia, Cyprus.
Whilst the recordings feature some of the UK's top Jazz musicians, including AIM album of the year winner Sarathy Korwar, Collocuter's Tamar Osborn and Chris Williams from Mercury nominated Led Bib, Are You Invested is most definitely not a jazz record.
Take an indie musician, with a love of spiritual jazz and fusion, and a collection of top musicians, and it's little surprise that this is the kind of album you might get. Full of original ideas which twist and turn, whether they be fully formed fuzz gated riffs or half dreamt melodies and structures, the album grooves, dances and weaves through a collection of instrumental soundscapes that represent various personal moments caught in flux.
As ELY's Henry Walton says:
Because I'm not formally trained I basically can't play the kind of music I want to. I was caught in this musical space between two places. What I could write and what I wanted to write.
At the same time I was figuratively and literally caught between two worlds. The world of London which I had left behind and a new beginning in Lefkosia. I was constantly battling with two versions of myself and trying to find peace and security in the middle. The process of creating this album and collaborating with much better musicians was a means of achieving that.
Lead track Dust is a 6 minute groove workout led by the two drummers Sarathy Korwar & Tom Rapanakis. Kowar's forays into the few pockets of space sound like repeated attempts to escape the hypnotic back beat. Williams' frenetic sax lines mimic the claustrophobia often felt when the Cypriot sky is heavy with the Dust from the Saharan desert and was on occasion poetically and dramatically linked to the heaving shelling of Homms during the Syrian Civil war.
Single Karpouzie Boogie, is all snaking eastern sax, dirty bass, synths wiggles and filtered arpeggios again playing out over the dueling drums of Korwar and Rapankis. You think you know when the track is heading until the two minute mark when everything falls away and a harmonised free-jazz solo from Williams takes centre stage over a stuttering half time beat.
Levante is an ever building seven and a half minute ode to a Mediterranean wind & features local Cypriot artist & Honest Electronics collective member Panayotis. As he reminisces about a simple breakfast, beautifully deft interplay between the sax of Chris Williams and flute of Tamar Osborn begin to take over, swirling into a final flourish of brass and woodwind over a bed of loose percussion and bubbling electronics.
The cover art, by artist Max Eru, plays with the idea of a fallen society with no structure or order except for the all conquering power of love. Like the musicians on the record he was given complete freedom to interpret the music and key themes in his style.
Henry Walton has released and been featured on records released though labels such as PIAS (UK & EUR), Arts & Crafts (US), Sony Japan, Dew Process (AUS), Fierce Panda (UK), Double Denim (UK), Brille (UK) & Algebra Records (UK).
Now based in Lefkosia he collaborates with artists connected to the local labels Louvana Records and Honest Electronics as well as old musical friends in London.
London based Algebra Records is an experimental label run by artist/composer/producer Casually Here (Nic Nell) with a focus on supporting emerging artists practically and collegiately to help foster artistic community and context. Recent Algebra releases included the two debut EPs from Heavenly Stems, artist/composer/architect Emma-Kate Matthews' 'Far Flung EP' and Sunplus' debut album 'More Colour'.